{"id":1831,"date":"2007-01-12T13:05:36","date_gmt":"2007-01-12T13:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/?p=1831"},"modified":"2007-01-12T13:05:36","modified_gmt":"2007-01-12T13:05:36","slug":"a-short-miserable-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/?p=1831","title":{"rendered":"A short, miserable life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reported in the <a href = \"http:\/\/news.independent.co.uk\/uk\/crime\/article2145144.ece\">Independent<\/a> today, the short life and brutal death of a 19-year-old Pakistani bride, Sabia Rani, transported from her rural village (where she&#8217;d had a few scant years of education) to 21st-century Britain, then brutally beaten to death, in a household with eight of her in-laws, for being unable to live up to her husband&#8217;s expectations about make-up, sandwiches and going to the supermarket. <\/p>\n<p>When a &#8220;holy man&#8221; confirmed she was &#8220;possessed by evil spirits&#8221;, through touching an item of her clothing, that probably sealed her fate.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Khan told his work supervisor that he was unhappy with his marriage because he had been rushed into it, and soon began kicking and beating his wife.<br \/>\nLeeds Crown Court heard that Ms Rani&#8217;s injuries, similar to those of a car crash victim, were so severe that she would have been in constant pain and ill for at least three weeks before she died.<br \/>\nYet Khan&#8217;s sister said she had seen no evidence of injuries. She and Ms Rani had been great friends, she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Much is made of the difference between &#8220;forced marriage&#8221; and &#8220;arranged marriage&#8221;. Yet could poor Sabia Rani be said to have had any meaningful agency, any real choice? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reported in the Independent today, the short life and brutal death of a 19-year-old Pakistani bride, Sabia Rani, transported from her rural village (where she&#8217;d had a few scant years of education) to 21st-century Britain, then brutally beaten to death, in a household with eight of her in-laws, for being unable to live up to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism","author-natalieben"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}